First of all, yeah, come at me. “Seinfeld” is only kinda-sorta funny, at best. Seinfeld himself is really not funny at all. His act is perpetually stuck between the oldschool, early 1950s-style, cigar-waving “hyuk-hyuk, get a load of all my jokes about women drivers” comedians and the post-Lenny Bruce era, where everything just boils down to telling boring “slice of life” stories with mildly clever exaggerations.
Seinfeld manages to pick and choose all the worst elements of both those eras and smush them together into a tremendously boring, un-funny standup act.
Annnnd that’s what gets translated to the show. Boring, egotistical, overly-New-York-focused, pretentious nonsense.
Like I said, come at me about that. I know people disagree. I truly do not care what you want to say to me, about it. You’re simply wrong. If you like his comedy or his show, you just have bad taste. I can’t fix that. I can’t change your mind. You can’t change mine, either. But I’m objectively correct that he and his comedy material both suck.
But the whole “show about nothing” thing is what really boils my ass. You can argue that the show wasn’t “about nothing,” in the first place. And that’s, like, whatever. There are valid arguments, there. In fact, I’d like to accept those arguments, then proceed under the assumption that the “show about nothing” concept really is a “show about nothing, and therefore about everything.”
This is the important point: the thing I disagree with is this wretched and insulting notion that “Seinfeld” was somehow a PIONEERING television show, in this context of being about nothing and/or everything.
That’s my problem. The claim that “Seinfeld” did any of that shit first. The implication is that all prior television, especially all prior comedies, were somehow locked into a “this is a show about a particular topic” mentality. And, like, “nobody had the GENIUS and the GUTS to make a freewheeling show about just, like, whatever topics came to the minds of the genius writers, and their groundbreaking stream-of-consciousness comedy process.”
That’s fucking horseshit. Horseshit of the highest fucking caliber.
I suppose these turd-brained fucksticks believe that “I Love Lucy” was about a Cuban guy who had a job as a bandleader and his wife, who sometimes tried to get into showbusiness. And “The Honeymooners” would be about a guy who has a job as a bus driver. And “Taxi” was a show about cab drivers, driving their cabs.
Of course, that’s not what those shows were ACTUALLY ABOUT. They were basically shows about nothing, just as much as “Seinfeld” was. They were often about relatable problems in domestic life, they were sometimes about people trying zany get-rich-quick schemes, they were sometimes about the fears and perils and hopes that surround pregnancy and childbirth, they were often about the uncertainty and passion and sacrifice that people put themselves through, for their budding careers, or their workaday jobs. And they were about a million other things that all fit the “show about nothing” mold BETTER than “Seinfeld” ever did.
I say they did it better, because they weren’t exclusively about sad, angry, borderline-psychopathic reprobates, who seem to have no goals or aspirations, beyond smirking and talking shit about people behind their backs, swilling coffee, and occasionally trying to get laid. They were shitty people, with shitty attitudes. I know that’s part of the joke…but it wears thin very quickly, and my point is that other shows did a similar “it’s a show about nothing…but really everything” theme, but their casts of characters WEREN’T entirely populated by malignant, fundamentally worthless narcissists.
Basically, I implore people to stop worshipping that fucking show, as if it was some kind of groundbreaking, high art. There were way better classic comedy shows than that piece of shit, from its own era and the TV eras before it.
Oh, and before you point out that I accused Seinfeld of being overly New York focused, but also used three other shows set in New York as counterexamples, I realized that just now.
And I don’t give a shit. I can keep going. “Green Acres” wasn’t really about farming. “The Bob Newhart Show” wasn’t really about psychiatry, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” wasn’t really about TV production, and “WKRP in Cincinnati” wasn’t really about radio production.
The shows about nothing and everything are THE MAJORITY of all the shows. Certainly, all the good ones. It’s harder for me to think of reversed examples, where the show is just what it was supposed to be “about.”
Like, yeah, “Flipper” really was about a fucking dolphin, and “The Flying Nun” really was about a flying fucking nun. And those shows fucking sucked.
I think I can consider my point thoroughly made.
Now, all you assholes can start typing abuse at me, for daring to dislike your idol. I won’t be reading that shit. Not sorry.
Oof. Still gonna have to disagree. Mostly in Jason Alexander’s case.
The ONLY good thing he’s ever done was that one guest shot, on that one episode of “Star Trek: Voyager.” Everything else has been a complete face-plant failure, for the completely understandable reason that it was of poor quality.
I mean, look at what he’s doing right now. Just last night, I saw him in an ad for some godforsaken online poker app. I actually saw the ad twice, once as a YouTube preroll and once as an actual TV spot, during a hockey game. Either way, it was pretty pathetic, and he clearly does not know how to manage his money.
I’ve heard that “Veep” is a pretty good show, though, and Julia Louis Dreyfus remains an integral part of the “Christmas Vacation” movie.
He’s done a lot of great broadway/stage work. He was one of the original cast members in Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along.” He can sing, dance, and act.
But I agree he often slums it in commercials and I don’t know why. I guess he’s gotta pay the rent.
I genuinely didn’t know that. I am basically allergic to musical theater, so it’s just way outside my whole universe. I’m perfectly willing to allow that he’s a treasure on the stage.
But yeah, he must have a major drug habit or an expensive-ass gaggle of mistresses, or some shit like that, the way he just washes up in bottom-shelf commercials. I’m glad to know he IS doing other stuff, because those poker ads were actually starting to bum me out. I mean, I don’t have anything against him, personally.
In Voyager I thought it was cringe that they had to go to extreme anti-George and make him the near smartest guy in the Galaxy (only to be outsmarted by Janeway of course).
Fair critique, for sure. But his smugness was just so perfect. It was just a masterclass. Motherfucker was basically like “look at my face. It’s the most punchable face in the universe, but you can’t punch it because I’m a hologram right now,” but he’d say all that just by smirking at end of a line.
And the hyper-dimensional ultra-space-whale was pretty cool, too.
Jason Alexander was absolutely amazing in Duckman, and I’ll fight you on that.